SASD BOE Committee of the Whole 4.13.26

001Test. Test. Mr. Chairman, it is 6:00 if you're ready anytime you're ready. I'd like to call the meeting to order. The meeting has been noticed to Evan's print media group, WCW radio, Magnum radio, LaCrosse Tribune, Sparta City Hall, Sparta Free Library, and the Maplewood administrative building. Are there any changes to the agenda tonight? >> believe we have any changes. No changes? If If then I'd entertain a motion to adopt the agenda. So moved. Second. Motion by Mr. Wells, second from Mr. Gonkey. All those in favor say I. I. >> I. All opposed say nay. We have an agenda. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for

002all. All right. Any more public input? >> [clears throat] >> Is that the last one? Sounds good. We will No, we will skip. Mr. Russ, can you remind us of Sparta's mission statement, please? >> Yes, our mission statement is to educate all students academically, emotionally, and socially to inspire curiosity and resilience. Perfect. Um then three one F, we're going to move right into accommodations to kick us off here. Mr. Russ? Uh yes. Um this will be the last meeting for two of our board members. Uh Pat McKenna, who wasn't able to make it here tonight, and Amy Lopez, who is here tonight. So, tonight we're here to um to really give a a shout-out to both Pat and Amy for their many years of service in the Board of Education. But, for Amy in particular,

003she started in April of 2021 and served all the way through April of 2026 for a 5-year uh term. So, uh we just wanted to say thank you very much to Ms. Lopez and uh wish her nothing but the best uh moving forward in the future as she gets to spend more time with her family and watching more games, baseball, and all those things, football, and basketball. So, congratulations, Amy, and thank you very much. >> [applause] >> Congratulations, Amy. Thank you so much. We can take these pictures Or you want You want to do pictures now? No. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Russ, Ms. Lopez, Mr. McKenna. Thank you. I've learned a lot from both of them. So, I appreciate it. Um Mr. McKenna's not here, but again, I think the last 4 years

004have been really helpful for seven very different people to work together and and all do some good together for that common goal of our students and community. So, thank you for that and you know where to find us, right? Come keep giving us input and suggestions and good ideas. Um With that, we'll move right into public input. So, we have a few submissions here. We'll start with the first one, Jenna Cast, on reduction of position. Just a reminder, I'll put up my when you got about 15 seconds to go. We have 3 minutes and I'll just put my hand up with about 15 seconds. Good evening. I'm Jenna Cast, a middle school health teacher. I'm here to speak about the decision to reduce a physical health education position and why both from a number standpoint

005and a student-centered standpoint, this is the wrong decision. We have been told that this reduction is based on numbers. However, when you look at how our day is structured, that reasoning does not hold up. In the afternoons, music, PE, and art all serve the same group of fifth and sixth grade students. The number is equal. The only difference is that art does not serve STEM in sixth grade, while PE and music do. Currently, we have four music teachers, three PE teachers, and two art art teachers serving those same students. So, if this decision is truly based about numbers, that inconsistency raises important questions. When I brought this forward, the explanation shifted from numbers to student experience. When the reason reasoning changes, it becomes difficult to understand and trust the decision-making process. So, let's talk about

006student experience. Reducing a PE position means that I have to absorb additional sections to meet the meet the required PE minutes. That direct result That direct result is fewer sections of eighth grade health. That sends a clear message. In order to maintain one area, another is being reduced. And in this case, it is health sections that are being reduced. Health directly supports the district goal of implementing social emotional learning, just as we learned in the mission today. To improve wellness and achievement, SEL is not an add-on, but it's embedded in the standards we are required to teach in health. By reducing health opportunities, we are limiting one of the primary spaces where students learn essential life skills, such as goal-setting, communication, decision-making, relationship, and personal well-being. So, if this decision is about student experience, we

007need to ask, which experiences are we prioritizing and which are we willing to reduce? Finally, when staff are given shifting and generalizing explanation, it creates a perception that decisions may be driven by factors that are not being clearly communicated. Strong leadership requires consistency, transparency, and clarity, especially when decisions directly impact students. I urge you to reconsider this reduction or provide clear and consistent explanation that aligns with the reality of how our program serves students. Because this decision is truly about students, it should be clear, consistent, and stand up to that standard. Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you. Uh next for public input, James Rasmussen, enrollment and staff. All right. Um I was a for- former board member. Um back when I got on the board, uh 12 years ago, whatever it was, the

008in and out enrollment at that time was about 3:1, 3 and 1/2 to 1. And it was pretty consistent until we hit COVID and we hit a big bump and a lot of kids chose to go online, go to different school districts, whatever they decided to do. Bumped up to about 4 and 1/2 percent or 4 and 1/2 to 1. I kind of expected that number to come back down, but it never did. It's been creeping up. It is now about 7:1. If you take in the enrollment that comes in, which is like 50-some kids, compared to the 377 that leave, it leaves us with a deficit of state aid of over $2 million. So, if you're looking for money, this is one of the ways that we need to get our kids back in

009this school district. They're going to keep leaving. Something's wrong. I'm not sure I can't put my finger on it. I've been looking. Something is wrong here in this district that they leave. Um When I take a look on uh the DPI, it and I I never wanted to go down this road, but I think it's it's it's maybe part of the equation. We have 22% now of our student population are students with disabilities. 20% are Hispanic. 8.8% are English learners. We've become a destination for these people. And that's fine. Except for this. This is public education. Every single student needs to be treated with the same equity. And if we're going over and above to make these kids more comfortable and our families more comfortable in our district, it's wrong. 377 kids are gone. Next

010year, the way the rate's going, it's going to be more. So, as as a as a concerned citizen of the city of Sparta in the Sparta Area School District, I task the board members to try and to figure out what's going on and how they're going to fix it. Along with that, I take a look at I I just picked Southside. We have 19 teachers there. 24 aides. 17 people that are, you know, all healthy, special ed, physical therapy. We've got four that are stan- or speech language therapists. Go ahead. Huh. Okay. You got to have teachers. I'm all for the teachers. What we're doing with coaches, special ed assistants, all these other assistants, I don't know. When I went to school, you went to kindergarten, there was a teacher. That was it. Not all

011this other stuff. We're overloaded with assistants, coaches, and a lot of these other staff. Thank you very much. Next public input, we have Kyle Sonnemann with upcoming budget cuts. Is this on? Oh, hi. Hello. My name is Kyle Sonnemann. I have been educator in Sparta for 13 years. Um I stand in front of you today as not just an educator, but a person that loves this city. The people that serve our students, our teachers, paras, nutrition services, custodial, central office are some of the hardest working people I know. The money, the tears, the sweat, the literal sacrifices that we have made for this town are not easily measured and everybody makes a difference in people's lives. Especially the staff that I know that I work with here at MVMS. Our staff has worked so hard

012to make this building not only a welcoming and engaging space for students, but a school that this past year has shown growth and is exceeding expectations on the state report card. Our building has faced such hardship over the time I've been here through many budget cuts, many staff reductions, COVID, loss of people that I've worked with due to illness, transfer of jobs, but we endure. We have lost so much, but have grown our students against the odds. I fear that more cuts to our building will be devastating to that growth. Every person that works with kids in this building does so with the fullness and are a necessity. We have created a successful building environment that everybody works hard to maintain. We are an ecosystem. One part of that ecosystem is broken, it affects everybody.

013Students, staff, our town. I beg you. I hope there are other options to consider besides our cuts. Losing seven positions in our building. We work better together. We work better when we maintain a building that maintains itself. That is the way we keep educators and I want to keep the educators I work with. I want to keep the paras, the custodial. Everybody that has an effect on these kids does so by the hard work that they put in. Please consider other options when coming and doing budget cuts. Continue to let us serve Sparta at its best. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Mr. Gene True with no topic. I apologize for not putting a topic under. I thought it was a meeting of the all, so I was kind of confused why we were even

014doing public comment if that was the case. Well, first topic would be the referendum or the only referendum. Um >> [clears throat] >> If I'm incorrect in this, someone can correct me, but this $1.8 million referendum was presented to be an increase. It was going to be 13 cents a thousand. And when in fact, I think it was 22 cents. Because I think the 13 cents represents the difference between the 1.8 that was proposed and the 750 that is in place. I would [clears throat] have appreciated it had the electorate been told that this was 22 cents, not 13 cents. I guess in a maybe I dumbed it down to an example that say my wife and I had a car payment of $300. We decided we want to get a new car, it's going

015to be $500. What's the car payment? $500 or is it $200? Because what would be represented here is the difference. Not this last budget hearing, but the one before in this room, the public asked for transparency. I don't think we received it. If it's 22 cents, it's 22 cents. That's what should have been distributed. We're using tax dollars to promote the referendum. We tell half the truth. It's disappointing. The other thing is that when I read in the paper that this is about the classroom experience, um I think that's important, classroom experience for the students. Uh cost of living increases, yeah, we need to we probably need to react to that. We need we need to pay our teachers. Perhaps our administration would consider a salary freeze for this next round. And if we're limited

016on funds, we would take care of the classroom. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Thank you very much. All right. Moving into reports, 2A, financial report, Ms. Hauser. Thank you. Uh the monthly financial report, this is as of the end of March. Our purchase order deadline has now passed. Uh so our spending is wrapping up for the year. Um with the exception of payroll and so that means that we're working on settling out the budgets for year end with two to three more revisions coming your way. Um and I'll show you in two sides that this is the first month of the school year that we have had positive cash flow. Um which goes to speak to our fund balance, which again I'll show a image in a couple slides here. So our revenue dashboard, uh

017the first picture is our total revenue followed by our local revenue or our state aid. Uh or I'm sorry, local would be our taxes. Uh the settlement of our taxes will come in August. Uh followed by state sources, which is state aid. The settlement for that will come in June. And then our federal sources. For expenditures year to date, you can see that we've expended about half of our budget and the largest part of that is due to salaries and benefits that occur during the summer and several of our DPI payments settle in the month of June. Um so going to a fund balance update, I know that there have been a lot of questions in the past month about our fund balance and why it carries at the amount that it does. So I

018just wanted to show this diagram um that is by month, our monthly revenue versus our monthly expenditures and our year to date deficit. You can see that in the month of November, our deficit reached over $9 million and that's because of the timing of our cash in versus our cash out. So in the month of November, our fund balance was down to 2.76%. And so this just is a good representation of what we talk about of how our fund balance fluctuates and why it's important that we maintain at year end at least to 18% fund balance. And the contrary to November, you can see in March we're up at 27% and that's because we just received our tax payments in January and February. So um again, this just helps tell the story of why that

019fund balance matters and how it fluctuates so greatly throughout the year. With that, are there any questions? Questions or comments from the board? Yeah, Ms. Halbert. Thank you very much. Ms. Hauser, somewhere I saw Oh, here it is. In BoardDocs, you have it broken down to where I believe what our fund balance is invested in or where it where it's available to us. Because this isn't it was always my understanding that this isn't actually cash in the bank. Yep, great question. So in BoardDocs there's also a all of our cash accounts, which include all of our funds, so our trust accounts and scholarship accounts and all of that. Fund balance is just equal to our operations, which is fund 10 and 27. And cash in the bank does not equal exactly fund balance because of

020things like receivables and payments due and things like that. So it's cash adjusted for receivables and payables equals your fund balance. Any other questions? Thank you, Ms. Hauser. >> [snorts] >> All right, moving to 2B, facility project report, Mr. Russ. Uh yes, today we had a great day at SHS. About 10:00 today, we had a groundbreaking ceremony to officially kick off the construction at SHS. The first portion or the first phase of SHS is beginning is already begun. Uh I'd like to thank SHS administration and Southwest specifically who are here on making sure that the traffic patterns, where the buses go, where the kids go. We're still working on making sure that everyone's getting safe to and from school. But it is a big a big challenge to change patterns for the past many years

021and months for many of our kids. So we're continuing that, but we're going to be getting the moving out of the welding shop. And that's been completed today and then that will be starting to be demoed very shortly here and then followed by the interior renovations to the woods, metals, autos, robotics, pottery, 2D room. All of those are next up on the list to be cleared out. So special thanks to our kids who are putting up with the moving in and out and special thanks to our staff because they've adjusted. Our whole goal in this phase one is to lose one month at the end and one month at the beginning and as of now we're on the we're on track to do that. So, we'll continue to move forward with phase one, but we're

022very positive to move forward in working together with Bray Market, building solutions and our entire team. Meadowview will be starting up in the beginning of June. We'll have a new secure entry and very pronounced entry. So, when you come in you get you don't have to get buzzed in as you move forward. And also a change to our schools, you'll notice if you go to our schools I believe all of them Mr. Cayless yet or not this one yet, right? There's a few So, if you go to Southside for example, you can't get in the vestibule area at all. So, you'll have to get buzzed in. We have a system outside where you say, "Hey, state your business. I'm here to see so-and-so." And then you get buzzed in and then you need and then

023you can come right into the main office. So, that's going to be in all of our buildings coming up. So, a lot of great things. Please keep an eye on our website for all the updates, but a very big day in our community and our school district today. Thank you. Questions or comments from board? Yeah, Mr. Cayless. I was saying when I saw the side entrance at the high school was opened up it was a little nostalgic there. So, I posted it up on Facebook. And were they able to find enough room for all of the shop classes, robotics, pottery and everything to move into? I know that was kind of tight situation last I knew. It's a lot of collaboration and we want to give our kids as many experiences as possible. So, Mr.

024Ford and his team got very creative in how can we maybe create some spaces that are still safe and everything and and everything's you know in compliance and code and that sort of thing, but yes, a space has been found for everybody and we're doing our best to continue that learning in different ways. Today at the groundbreaking we had our construct we had our our metals kids, our welding kids and a lot of other kids in different trades and that sort of thing. So, how do we start to build that capacity with our kids to understand what are the the possibilities? It's not just you know, digging holes or anything like that, but it's about those heavy machinery. How do we build those those skills to be productive when they graduate in a in a

025specific trade that they love to do. Awesome. Thank you, Mr. Russ. Let's move on to 3C, announcements and upcoming meetings. Mr. Russ. Yes, as as I stated earlier in the accommodations, this will be Miss Lopez's and Mr. McKendall's last board meeting. So, thank you very much again and we welcome William Lasco and Darcy Rude to the board at the end of the month. So, welcome to the the Board of Education and thank you very much for your willingness to serve. April is the month of military children. This is a great celebration for us and if you remember, please wear purple on the 15th. It's purple up day for our military kids. And at the end of the month we are collaborating with Tolman again to have a military child luncheon. This year Tolman is hosting,

026so we've sent an invite to all of our military families and we have a good number going to Tolman for that luncheon to celebrate the military child and their families. Talked about the groundbreaking a little bit, but we're wrapping up. We have the seniors will be able to tell you better than I have, but I believe we have less than five weeks to go before the end of the school year, May 22nd. It's going to be the end of the school year. However, we do have two celebrations before that. We have sales graduation on the 14th and then SHS graduation on the 22nd as well. Our spring sports are loving this type of weather and hopefully those storms will stay to the north and not by us, but they're in full swing and ready to

027go and you know, wanting some nice warmer weather so they can participate in that with no rain. I guess the cold the baseball and softball and track they've run in cold weather but it's that darn rain, which we need to stay away from and then same with soccer. But other than that we're wrapping up. We've wrapped up. We're still almost wrapping up assessment season, state assessment season and then SHS will wrap up a ramp up with their ACT and final exams and end of year celebrations and field trips and by continuing learning all the way through the 22nd of May. Thank you for the updates. Questions or comments from board? Good. All right. Thank you, Mr. Russ. Move right into business, 3A, discussion possible recommendations for next steps after the April 7th, 2026 operating referendum

028result. Mr. Russ. All right, before we dive into change the student experience a little bit, higher class sizes and that sort of thing, but we've tried our best not to touch that that student experience. Talking to some people in the community, they they couldn't really tell the difference when their kid comes home because of the the experience didn't change. Their co-curriculars were still there. Um, the opportunities were we still had before school care, after school care. Our sports were free. Our co-curriculars were free. Our athletic events and our clubs were able to go to different areas of the state and in country in order to do that. So, however, this failed referendum I think has to we have to as a board take a look at what about these learning opportunities and what do we

029look at? We have reduced a lot of staff. We're coming to a point where we have to look beyond staff and we unfortunately may have to look to those student experiences like we talked about in the referendum. So, tonight we're just kind of brainstorming. It is a a recommendation to the full board if if the board wishes to send anything through. But administration, me specifically, I'll say I'm looking for a little bit of guidance about where you want us to look. Do you want us to look at increasing revenue in certain areas, which could mean not having students and and and families and community members come in for free? Do we want to look at you know, increasing revenue that way? We currently don't charge in certain areas for sports and our and other co-curriculars

030are free as well. We're probably having our gyms used this after this evening. A lot of clubs use our gyms free of charge for the most part, you know, especially with the booster clubs. Transportation, several years ago we split we we had we the board made the conscious decision to decrease ride time and try their best not to have a 4K or a 5K with a senior on the bus. Do we need to look at that? Because that could be a cost savings as well. So, those are just some some ideas to to increase revenue and there's other ways. The buses is decreased revenue decreased expenses, but we bus basically everybody. Some districts have said if you're within an area you would charge for bussing. There's an increased revenue stream. When we decrease expenditures, do

031we want to look at co-curricular trips? Do we want to look at you know, pay to play or not just pay to play, pay to be part of an organization. Do we want to look at not waving fees? How can we run food service as a as a true business? Because right now we're we're we're adding at the end of the year. So, there's a lot of discussions here and I'm not saying we need direct tonight, but just to start that discussion and direction for the administration because there's a lot of different ways we can go. And since there's a lot of different ways, we have a lot going on with the district to say the least. So, giving some clear direction to the to the administration team to focus our time and resources to

032what the board would want would be very beneficial in specific areas. So, we may not have all the answers tonight. I mentioned how many you know, what happens if we charge for ages our grade 7 through 12 for activities to get in. I'm not sure how many that that'll be an increased revenue because right now they're in for free. So, that's an example. Do I know how much? I might not know how much. We want to say, "Hey, we're going to get rid of the community or the family passes." Well, that's $50 and you you know, they usually come that we might be able to put some dollar amounts to that. Or with the reductions as well. If we decide to change transportation, change the way we do things in a certain area. So, with

033that, Ms. Hauser, do you want to talk a little bit about our budget reality as we shared with the referendum? Yep, so I just have two quick slides just to remind us how we came up with the 7.2 million shortfall. And as a reminder, that was over the next three years and that's because our class continued to grow each year, so um the variance grows each year. So, class sizes are growing faster than revenue. These are all based on projections and our estimated shortfall in year one, year two and year three, you can see that that grows. Um, when we look at our expenses, salaries and benefits make up around 70% of our total expenses. Um, open enrollment is almost $4 million or 8 and 1/2% of our budget. Private school about vouchers is another

0341.3 million. And so then when you get to supplies and equipment and purchased services, which are the two areas that we aren't state mandated, um, you know, you're looking at maybe 6 million total or so between those two areas. And so those are definitely areas that we look at to um be efficient. Transportation would be in that area. But in that area is also our textbooks, our one-to-one iPads, um, all of our purchased services through CESA. Um, so there are so many class in there, our utility costs, our business insurance, things that um we don't have a lot of levers on. And so I just think I wanted to show that um it is a big budget that we have a lot of input on, but just know that the areas that um aren't state

035mandated or aren't staff are not the biggest areas of the budget. All right. With that being said, before we, you know, I mentioned a lot of different things uh for increasing uh revenue to decreasing expenditures. But the one thing, and I know we talked about it before we decided to go to referendum back in I must have been in November or December is talking to the community, surveying the community, getting some feedback from the community uh in regards to what next in the next step. What do they value? What do they want the district to see um moving forward uh as a focus area. So uh that's also a discussion as part of next steps is is how do we get feedback? What What could we do better? What What could we improve? What are

036some areas that uh the community says that maybe they don't value that we think we're valuing. Um, so really to get some feedback possibly with that um and how do we move forward? So as Ms. Hauser said, we our our expenditures are increasing and our revenue basically is not increasing at all because of our declining enrollment like a lot of school districts. So uh we'll continue to do our best with the resources we have, uh continue to look for for for ways uh to be efficient, but we're we're running out of ideas right now, but we'll continue to work in in really pound the pavement to make sure that we uh use our resources to the best of our abilities. So with that um Mr. Chairman, Mr. Burns Gilbert, I'm open to any questions, discussion,

037or anything like that. >> Yeah. Board members, comments, questions. Who wants to go first? Was that a Mr. Burnett? There you go. I'd like to just uh bring up something that we've talked about before and one area of savings that I think we'd have is if we went to self-funded health insurance. Um that's an avenue that uh will have a return for us along with having some rebates flow back from uh uh the pharmacy uh benefit. And uh you know, I think there's some substantial savings there. And with that, please note I Dr. Burnett, we have looked at that model and we'll continue to look at that to see if that's the best uh is a way. So we've discussed that. We have an employee health and wellness uh committee and we do look at

038that and we do talk to our insurance broker about the pros and cons of that as well. So that's on our radar. Anything else? I did. That's it. As well. Yeah, so I guess um I I guess I'm not uh particular on like what we need to do to balance our budget, but more of just like a process recommendation as to like uh my opinion is to like rip the band-aid off or not drag your feet cuz we know that the following years aren't aren't better. So we need to I I I'm in I'm in the boat of taking action as soon as possible. And and making sure that we put the district in the best situation possible. Go for it. Uh one of the things about um raising the revenue that was brought up

039was um you know, potentially charging for for um folks that come in to see games, matches, things like uh robotics would hold the um the week zero event. Perhaps a more >> [snorts] >> a better way would be to just say this is what we expect as a rental charge for a usage charge for that rather than having that um charge to everybody that's coming in. Um I'm trying to think how that was. So we would just have a flat rate. If you're going to use the gym for X amount of days, this is what the charge is. I know we already do that with groups that aren't strictly school affiliated. Um, but extending that out because if we've got kids that are are competing and it's bringing people in and we're charging everybody to

040come in, especially in the school buildings using the gyms and whatnot, it feels like we're using those kids to make that money, which we are. Um, but then those teams aren't getting in. Some of those teams are fundraising to try and cover a lot of those costs. And so I think that would put more of a burden on those teams or not more of take unfair advantage of those teams versus just saying, "Okay, we're going to extend the costs out now to um you know, you were previously covered because a staff member is teaching or coaching in here, so it's under the school to not um charge for that usage. We're going to start charging for that usage. We have to charge for that." That I could understand. Um, but I think charging per person

041to come in for an event might detract away from those events and we want more of that coming in. So if I understand you correctly, Mr. Gonky, that you're you're talking about um kind of like a level or group one, you know, kind of like the open gym, you know, we have we may have basketball practice going on through uh this part of you know, SBA. We have Sparks. We might have open gym for a booster club or or any type of booster club event. You're talking about looking at the usage charge for that and and charging cuz currently group one is free. Yes, so it's a potential means of just charging for the events. Maybe not the practices, but for sure the events. But with the the school, you mentioned robotics, but if robotics

042is putting on status quo, correct? We're not looking to charge the robotics team that. Nope, so if the robotics team were to put on week zero scrimmage, we would have to pay a flat fee to use that just like anybody else would. Cuz if you charge admission, so it's basically if you charge admission, this is your fee. Not charging admission, we would just charge the team a uh flat fee for usage for that. So week zero would be a charge. So it wouldn't be a charge for the practices, but a competition, we'd say, "Okay, we're just rather than collecting a piece of everybody that comes in, we're just going to say this is what the team needs to be able to provide in order to to have that uh event." >> [snorts] >> Um with

043some of these new security systems that we're having put in place in the buildings, is there any way to prepay for services? We could use my understanding referendum money for that, correct? >> For some of the yes, we can. So we are looking at anywhere we can that is a priority of us to if we could use the facility funds from the referendum in November of 2024, we are looking to use that to reduce our operating cost to the to the fullest extent that we can. Uh obviously we have to be careful because we can't mix buckets. And we want to make sure that what the the question was the specific question in November of 2024, we want to make sure if we're doing things for the facility referendum that it could be charged to

044that as well. Yes, so we're looking at that. I'm good. I'll keep quiet. Okay. Um I do have some suggestions regarding transportation. Um I feel as though it may be beneficial to the district to reduce the number of competitions that um athletic or activities can go to. Um I know that in the past it's been said it's embarrassing for Sparta to show up in a school bus when everyone else gets a coach bus, but reality is maybe we show up in a school bus and we do just fine. Um I recall I I do think that transportation um having students on the bus for less long was a really great um idea. And it's important that kids have a good experience on the bus. But if I recall, there would be a significant transportation savings

045if Sparta High School started later. And that would also be good for the students themselves because um studies show that high school students need their sleep and they they perform better when they start later. I could be completely wrong, Mr. S, but I remember maybe this was just a number that was thrown out and not based in reality at all, but I remember 400,000 being discussed as a possible savings if that were the case. I know it might require some parents of younger students to have someone take care of their students for half an hour or an hour before high schoolers would get back. But we're in a position now where everybody needs to take responsibility for what they can do and um if it's a $400 savings to do that and it's better for

046the high school students I I think that's something we really need to look at. Um I've been hearing in the community um and even thinking about it myself reducing the technology that we use in the schools. So many people are saying in fact I >> [cough and clears throat] >> I listened to a gentleman and I did not do I did not look at the studies he was citing or anything like this, but he was presenting to some government board um how our um ability to think critically has been reduced significantly since technology became the main source of um you know, textbooks and as replacing textbooks in our schools. So many families have said to me, why do why do we have one-to-one technology? Why don't we have books? Why don't we have paper? Why

047don't we have pen? Why don't we have students writing things down and reading from actual books? Um sharing, going to the library, whatever it is, I have no idea if it would be a cost savings, but um certainly we do spend a lot in technology leases. So if Sparta wants to be a destination district and different, maybe this is a way that we could save money and I don't want to say go old school, but um there may be some benefit to that for a number of students. Reducing the the district footprint where it is a legitimate savings over time maybe something that the board should look at. I think that would be you know, we hear um efficiency saving efficiency expert, you know, having someone come in and determine where those cost savings in

048terms of buildings could be. And um in terms of sports and whether or not we should charge admission for sports, I I would not recommend that we charge admission where other districts do not charge admission for soccer games, um baseball games, tennis, you know, those sports where it's out in a field and anybody [clears throat] could walk up and look from a fence, whatever. I don't know what the um standard is for charging admission, but I think it would be very unusual if um a family came and would have to charge would have to um pay to get in to sit on a bleacher where they could stand outside the fence and watch the game from the you know, see the same thing. I don't know. That just doesn't seem like that makes sense to

049me. Um And nobody likes talking about it, but um right-sizing of staff and administration as well. Um No one wants to take on extra burden. But with the number of the the largest number of staff you have the amount we have to spend on salaries and benefits gets spread among more people. So if people are willing to take on additional duties and fewer people work in the district there is potentially a way to increase salaries and benefits for individuals um and then I hear over and over again and twice just recently this within the last since the election two different people have come up to me and said that staff is not willing to talk about this because they don't feel like it there it's safe to do so. And the other person had nothing

050to do with the district. And they both talked about the number of middle management staff. And I'm not pointing fingers or anything, but both commented to me that it's unknown what everyone's job duties are and that previously um duties were passed on to other people and perhaps not replaced. At least that is the perception. So communication needs to be increased. Um additional transparency, maybe posting job duties would be helpful for staff to understand what other people do. But um right-sizing staff and right-sizing administration middle management across the board. That's um with staff and benefits salary and benefits being the largest part of the budget, it needs to be addressed. But that's not up to me anymore. So enjoy. So a couple clarifications uh Ms. Lopez. You mentioned transportation and we did talk about the split

051run. And uh other districts have done it and other districts have done the high school first for the the reason for uh child care and after school and co-curriculars and stuff like that and we do see a large savings like that. We have talked about it and it is burden on the families and we would need to do a little bit more exploring if that's the way it's going to go and that would be a very quick turnaround because we have as I mentioned less than 5 weeks before the end of the school year and communicating anything over the summer sometimes difficult uh to make sure of that. So that could be a way and I'd like to look to the board to do you know, to to to to send us in that direction.

052Another way is is to go back to the old Meadow View transfer. Uh [snorts] where it we we get ride times would increase. They used to be a little bit larger, probably closer to 6:00 pick up rather than closer to 6:15, 6:20. Um we would do one route in the entire neighborhood rather than a couple and so really look for efficiencies there. Um but it would be more systemic uh like we used to have. Is that an area you want us to explore as well? Um It It it It it puts big kids and little kids on the bus. And once again, I'm not saying that's a bad thing because other districts do it and that sort of thing, but is that something that uh the board wishes for us to go? Something to consider

053with that one. Um Transparency and and communication. We heard that at the the board the board forum as well and we hear that really open to once again it goes back to the next steps after the referendum getting feedback from our stakeholders. What does that communication look like? Is it communication or is it engagement? Cuz they're different. We had a lot of Ms. Hauser and I went to a lot of organizations, a lot of meetings and this we have open house, we have this and we have a lot of people here at a board meeting which is fantastic. We didn't see this kind of at any of our um feedback. Uh I was at talking to another local superintendent uh and for uh a snow day they put it out on Facebook. I'm just using

054these numbers. I can't remember he said it gets a thousand reposts. I'm not on social media, but I think that's good, he said. And then he says, hey, we have a an informational session about a referendum, it gets 20. So as part of this, how do we get that engagement and how do we get that communication uh and transparency moving forward? So other things that you would like to see. So all those things are are very valuable as we go through this um this part. So um So yeah, that was just some clarifications based on Ms. Lopez. So thank you. Thank you. I wrote them all down. All right. Yeah, go for it, Mr. Cocking. Um to piggyback on the the right-sizing there, um I've heard that from a lot of staff um not another

055main office position uh specifically. Um when I first started working here we had more work than you could handle for the four people that were in the department by far. The solution wasn't adding more people, it was working the system to be more efficient. And um we've come quite a ways for tech. We've also done quite a ways for I think maintenance and that. Nobody's handwriting out things anymore, they're actually submitting tickets, but maybe we could go a step further and look at how can we do this in Skyward? How can we be more efficient to help the main office staff um and the support staff at the buildings um because right now the support staff feel like they're just screaming into a brick wall and then getting yelled back when they talk to the

056main office. And so um there's got to be some efficiency that works both ways there and it may in the future we may find out we don't need two secretaries up there that we had before because we can do it with one person combining those jobs because we have a workflow that works to be able to do that within those positions that we have. So, um that was one of the big ones that was communicated to me and I just was thinking back to that about how swamped we were and and and where people was not going to fix the issue. It became known to fundamentally changing the way we operate. I understand there's things with like finance and rules that we have to apply. But do we have to have all those positions to

057do it? Are there ways we can take those services that we're paying for and leverage that to get more efficiency out of it? So, if that's the Once again, efficiencies, where do you want us to put Once again, if you want to throw it out there and say, "Hey, you know, this we have recommendations." So, that Once again, that's you know, if you want us to look at the main office or not main office central office and say, "Hey, look to reduce x amount of staff without saying any names or anything." We can't do that anyway, but but if that's the direction you want us to go, um we can definitely look at a little bit harder. It's a potential savings, but I think before we do that, we need to see what we actually

058need and then see where we can leverage what we already have to make things more efficient. Um cuz we didn't reduce staff. I mean, we eventually reduced staff in IT um through attrition, but ultimately, we managed to work within what we had because we were able to get the system to work more efficiently. And that would get more I think that would help with the retention piece at the very least since we're asking so much. Yeah. And you mentioned attrition, is that something you know, once again, there's ways there's attrition and then there's the reduction. So, once again, it really goes back to you know, I understand, "Hey, these are the essential job functions and and that sort of thing." I I believe we have all those things. Um but we can rework and you

059know, do that. So, but once again, just some some direction from the board would be great if that's the direction they want to go. I think the efficiencies we could generate would tell us whether or not we would need to do that, but that doesn't mean that that person can't move to a different position. It just means we have to reorganize to be more efficient. Okay. Mr. Russ, I feel like it would be inappropriate to say you need to reduce three positions at Meadowview without having any, you know, understanding of what that means for everybody else, but I do think that across the board just like you just like you go and you say, you know, reducing this position by attrition would change the class sizes by this much. You know, is that an acceptable

060margin? You know, is it Is it acceptable to um have other people do additional duties and in time reduce a position? That, you know, that's not without um that's not outside the realm of possibility. But just for us to say three positions or whatever, I don't think that we have the information to be able to do that. Not that we shouldn't get it. Exactly. I'm just basically Oh. I just said this is We're just >> coming off what I was >> Yeah. Other questions, comments from the board? >> [clears throat] >> Good. All right. Um I can share some thoughts. Um I think How much time do y'all have is my first question, but I think um thank you for being here. That's number one. Um like people have said, I'd always rather have more

061engagement than not. Um and that's important, I I think uh uh one of my biggest takeaways that I have coming out of this referendum is that the funding system's broken. Um we are since 2009, cost of inflation hasn't kept up. We're $9 short of what it should be to give our kids a fair and just education of what they deserve. That's the system that was put in place. Um and since then, uh that has been decoupled from automatic increases that normally um would just be part of the budget, right? Um but they decided, they being the GOP legislature of the state of Wisconsin. So, look up who those people are, call them, email them, right? Because Sparta's not going to fix a broken funding system just in our district, okay? We need everybody to work

062towards that goal. Um and if 100 maybe 60 of us are doing that, right? That's going to go a lot further advocating for what's best for our students now and in the future. Um So, that's one. That's one that In all the phone calls I made over the last 2 months, almost everyone I talked to that didn't hang up on me could agree that that's broken. That's not okay. It's property taxes. There's unjust issues, right? Um I'm never going to be the smartest person in the room, but there's enough people in Madison that can figure out how to do it different, right? Um and then it doesn't pit neighbors against each other over basic expectations of operating costs, right? That happen every single year. Um right? You look at the graphs of inflation, you look

063at the graphs of enrollment, you look at the graphs from, right? Guest columns towards the increasing of salaries. You can do that with any industry, any, right? Workforce over the last 10, 20 years. Um we're not unique to those challenges. Um we might feel them a little differently in a small town that's disguised as a big town sometimes. Um or right? Depending on where you come from, but those are pieces that I can't not mention because regardless of what decisions we make here at this local level in the next 3 years with a $7 deficit, that's going to keep happening, right? That's what local control looks like is taking what the ask is to the community and saying, "This is what we need." and let them decide yes or no instead of building it into

064automatic state increases. So, um we get what we vote for in that case. Um granted, I was barely paying attention to anything 2009, so I didn't know what to do there, but now we know and we can do better. I think as far as some of these next steps, um for me, school perceptions, I we need better data. Um You mentioned a couple I One, I agree with everything that was said so far. My general takeaway is look at everything, right? Everything from the list, the revenue generating. Like if we're not at least having conversations about everything, we're not doing our jobs, right? To explore. And maybe we end with the same exact decisions at the end of the day, right? At least we've done our due diligence and get as many perspectives as we

065can in that process. Um but to me, school perceptions, that was incredibly helpful data in 2023. It helped us make a decision. Uh would have been super helpful in January if we when we were deciding between 1.8 or 1.5 or 2.3, right? Um but I think that's going to be important um a version of that. I think another version of that uh that process, right? We don't need the exact same one because that was at the time was connected to the facility side of things, but I I think that'll be helpful for us to really give our stakeholders, um our community, our family, and our staff, right? Those three kind of main pillars, our students, too. Uh want all the feedback to to be able to make the best decisions we can on what do

066they value, right? Is it the entrance fees to sports? Is it, right? Some of the the waived fees for courses that come with costs. I learned in the last few years how much clay costs in the art department. It's a lot, right? Those are pieces that all come into play that um you know, we've tried the last 4 years of making reductions to not impact that student experience. I think the other piece related to that, but different, is the engagement plan. I think we need an an engagement plan, right? Four years ago, 5 years ago, I forget when I started, um but I shared a 12-month, once-a-month plan with I think it was uh the previous superintendent at the time. Um and then things happened, 22 failed, lots of things happened. I think I shared

067it with Mr. Russ at some point, but I think that's one where we need to be in front of people, we being the board, we being administration, we being the cabinet, we being anyone that wants to support our schools, right? Cuz um we're all better together when we're pulling in the same direction. And if that would have happened the last 4 years, maybe last week would have turned out differently. Maybe. I don't know. I don't have a crystal ball, but but in my mind, how can we build structures that rely less on the individual people in these chairs and those chairs and don't allow excuses to I didn't know or I wasn't paying attention or, right? I was busy or all of these things to create those spaces for constructive, ongoing engagement, feedback, pros, cons,

068all the good stuff. Um because if we do that and and own those spaces and create opportunities, right? That's going to mean people feel more bought in, more empowered, and more part of the process instead of uh receiving decisions or receiving I right? I didn't know this. I didn't know that. We've been talking about this since November, before that, right? In 2024, we said we were 2 years in coming back. Um a lot of some of those questions we have talked about from plans in the past. Um from the administration salaries, there's there was a plan to fix that 4 years ago. I would have said that to anyone that called me, but people make a Facebook post instead of calling me, right? We need to work together to solve conflict and role model that

069for our students, okay? That's how we're going to move forward in the best ways possible. And it's going to suck, but we've done it before. We're going to be fine. We're going to come out through our district and our communities resilient. If you haven't been to a sales graduation before, I highly recommend it um because those students have been through a lot more than some people ever have to go through in their lifetime. And this is, in my mind, just another uh example of what we as a community and we as a education community, too, in Sparta can come together for throughout these next few years as decisions have to be made. So, school perceptions engagement plan, those two to me are high priorities, right? In addition to looking through all of those very specific

070examples that people just shared, right? And I don't know, we've had um uh what's the word? Ideas shared in the past. Um I tried to I don't want to shoot anything off the table at this point because again I have my own personal preferences either way, but we also know what is coming in addition to the $7 million deficit. We know we're uh How big is our kindergarten class this year? 100 students? About 110. And how many students are graduating out of 12th grade? About 250. Yeah. So, that's going to happen every single year the next 10 years, right? Probably the next 6 7. Right. So, that's not getting better and that's going to need to be addressed and that's where some of the staffing pieces come in. Like I said, on that stage three

071years ago, I if it was up to me, I'd pay everyone at our district 60 grand a year. That's what it should be if inflation, if minimum wage has kept up in the last 40 years, right? I'm not going to give history lectures right now, but to me, those are where those conversations need to happen and how can we build them in to policies and procedures? One policy, maybe the uh CEO of the company never gets more than four or five times the lowest paid full-time. I've seen some of those policies outside of just education. But to me, that's a sustainable solution that doesn't bring us back here every year or two or three around some of those issues that um people seem to to uh right have a important part of the decision-making and

072what happened last week with the with the referendum. So, I think those policies, that's one example. Another example that I want to would encourage us as a board entertain related to class sizes. So, we don't have to come back to um you know, the the the pitting against what is more uh important than not, right? We have policies in place to help give admin and staff clarity on when reductions need to be made. Um I think that's easier to say than to do knowing the intricacies of how classes are scheduled, but to me, those are some more uh structural pieces that I think we need to explore um in addition to all of the the other micro like specific examples that have been shared. Uh the transportation, absolutely. I know that's a big part of

073our budget. Um consolidation, right? What's the cost of Maplewood? What's the cost of all of our buildings to operate? I think what are those savings that look like when if that does come down the road? Um right? With some of the administrative positions, whether it's some of the, you know, middle management or admin having more people closer together under the same roof. With the rise of AI automation efficiencies, right? All of those things will should be and we will be exploring them because we have continued to find creative budget solutions I feel like every month almost up up here, right? And so, um but those are ones that I want to make sure that echo the sentiments of what's already been shared and then also um prioritize, right? Short-term fixes are one thing. Um But

074to get Sparta the best possible direction we have to think long-term, right? Maybe I'll be on the board in 20 years, I don't know. That's up to you all, but that's stuff that like we can't just look at what's in front of us for right now in this year knowing that there's other issues coming that we'll need to address. So, um I wanted to prioritize those few things for sure. Um but really a lot of my other specifics were already mentioned in different ways, so I'm not going to go back and rehash some of those things. I I think the other part um I guess would be just that that I'm grateful for this opportunity, right? It will be okay. It'll be all right. We're going to do some tough things and and um to

075what Mr. Sonnemann said, right? Like y'all have done awesome things with not much the last four years and that is not how it should be, but we're going to have more of that and it's something that our community is used to and I I'm faithful and trustful that we'll be able to come through together. So, with that, I'll yield my time back to the speaker. I don't know how long that took, so um but questions, comments, anything follow up from the board before we move on? I actually do have another comment. You know, um doing hard things is reality. That is life and that is what our students are going to have to do all the time. Um Mr. Rasmussen had mentioned open enrollment out and as I revisited the numbers here, that's almost $4

076million. Um Some of those kids you're never going to get back. But when we're engaged when our students are excited to be here and when we're engaging them and when we're giving them meaningful and fruitful um lessons, that's exciting and they share that information. I was just thinking about um school perceptions. We've got a wonderful marketing department. We've got kids who are brilliant at all kinds of different things. Why don't leverage our student gifts? Have our students come up with a marketing plan. Have our students come up with the um promos and the, you know, everything. Our our CTE kids, get them involved in every aspect of this and let's let them be our ambassadors as well. And for all the parents out there who are listening, we've got we've got to be responsible. Like

077we cannot let the school district we cannot expect the school district to take our kids from 7:00 in the morning until 7:00 at night and not be there to read with them and not be there to feed them good food at night and everything. We have got to step up as parents, too, to help the school district, to help our teachers, to support them in every way we can. It's absolutely critical. This is an ecosystem. Is it not, Mr. Sonnemann? It is an ecosystem that we have here. We work together and we need to be able to do that and we need to be able to do that respectfully and um responsibly and like mature adults. So, I I guess I have just one final point just cuz what we're looking at like the the

078historical significance of this and whatnot. And I mean, I understand that we're in a tough boat, but after Tuesday, there's one less school district in the state of Wisconsin. So, I think it's very important that um like even though we are in a difficult decision, that we do have to make difficult decisions, there are communities that are making even tougher ones. So, um I appreciate all the work that everyone does here and we will get through this together. Any other questions, comments from board? Mr. Ruff? So, just looking for I know we've talked a lot about a lot of things and I can tell you, you know, coming off of Mr. Wells's comments, a lot of districts are facing this for the first time. This is the fifth fourth or fifth straight year that we

079that that the board uh and we've and our entire community have gone through this. And um getting information, I'm I'm all in for favor of and trying to figure out where we can pull things, but we don't have a lot of good answers. Because a lot of the good answers that we have, we changed transportation, we're going to have and that's perfectly fine. We'll stand by those decisions. Any of those decisions, school perceptions, we're going to have people say, "Well, I told you you had too much money. Why are you asking me?" So, it's really about how do we start prioritizing and how do we start allocating our resources to areas that we have good return on our investment. Whether it's open enrollment, we're trying to find information. Once again, every time we get an

080open enrollment, I I'm trying to get feedback. Anytime we get an alternate open enrollment, especially to an alternate to a a virtual school, I'm calling. So, how do we get that the kids may not be coming back. You know, but how can we work together to promote the Sparta Area School District in a positive light? Having our kids share their experiences. Have our parents share the experiences and maybe not go to social media and go to, you know, I believe, you know, Colin, you mentioned you're not getting a lot of feedback. Come to us. How do we get more engaged rather than going to social media? Because a lot of people look at social media and they're trying to find us, they may search I'm not on social media, but I don't know how much

081positives are out there about the Sparta Area School District, unfortunately. And maybe that's typical for a lot of school districts. But how do we start getting that marketing campaign? How do we start getting our community members to understand if they go to the school district if they go to the social media or go anywhere else and and not necessarily have the facts and not partner with us, that actually hurts us in the long run as well. So, how do we increase that engagement? How do we increase that partnership? And um how do we start to do this collectively? Um because our it's not going away. We can't rely on the state of Wisconsin to to to do that. Or the federal government because they're we we we have to look and that's why we go

082to referendum to see what the community says yes or no in that period of time. They said no. I respect that. I'm happy that everyone out and voted and let us know how they did that. Very happy. So, but now it's what direction specifically does the Board of Education want to send us cuz I know we've talked about a lot of things. >> [snorts] >> Is there any motion would be great and to explore once again these are recommendations, but at least it gives us a an idea what we could do for between now and the next meeting to um really gain a better understanding. It might be just some information as well. But there's >> That's that's what I would need is more information on the total cost savings and the revenue generating. What

083are those projections from the ideas shared tonight and also the ideas shared in the past of what is that actual budget impact and how can we right uh think through that in a short-term impact and long-term? >> Yep. And and remember it little things may not have a big revenue impact. Is it the symbolic? I'm not looking to make a standpoint, but it's again we went to the operating referendum talking about experiences. Our student experiences. You know, I'm I'm not looking to make it you know, but what do we need to do what would the board consider a symbolic you know, cuz we charge kids to go into athletic events for example. We may not increase the dime really. But the kids got to make a choice. They have to put their foot forward. Parents

084need to maybe do that. You know, and Miss Lopez you mentioned parents got to help us out if they want to continue these experiences and that sort of thing. They want to come to our events. Maybe they have to pay more. Streaming. We stream things for free. I'm not saying we could charge for this. I don't know if anyone would. >> [laughter] >> But our athletic events and our in our concerts and everything you know, that sort of thing. So, those are the things that we may not make a big you know, a big revenue increase to help our budget because our you know, Miss Hauser said you know, we shared the data. It takes a lot of of reductions to get to 1.6, 2.3, and 3.4 or whatever those numbers were. It's a lot

085of reductions. And increasing student fees not necessarily going to do it. So, if there's anything that you'd like us to you know, besides all of it, I guess I can start putting some things down to some potential ideas. But I'm just looking if there's any you know, more direct guidance for administration. Should we consider a community survey on what the community values? That would be the school perception survey that I think if if that would be a That would be a a direction. Um, we used them in the past. They helped us you know, for the uh 2024 both operating and facility referendum and we have some good data. The problem is it's old data. So, I guess I'll move for the school perceptions. Second. [snorts] Any further discussion? Can we add um moving to

086recommend to the full board um to have administration reduce uh transportation costs because that is a large can potentially be a large chunk. Let's take one motion at a time if that's okay. If that's all right. Did you have anything else, sir? Good. All right. Uh does that need to be roll call or can that be All in favor is fine. All right. So, all those in favor for moving uh to the full board at the end of the month for consideration school perceptions survey to get feedback from our stakeholders all those in favor say I. I. All opposed say nay. Motion moves to the full board 6-0 one absence and there was another motion. I move to recommend to the full board to have administration um consider reduction in transportation costs. Uncon- Oh, no.

087No. Doing that in a minute. Seconds. It's muscle memory, yeah. Um, so motion by Miss Lopez second for Mr. Wells. Any further discussion or comments? The motion was to move the transportation costs uh specifically to the full board. All those in favor say I. I. All opposed say nay. Motion moves to the full board 6-0 one absent. Any other specifics we want to pull out from the laundry list? I recommend to move to the full board the to have administration investigate the reduction of costs by reducing technology one-to-one. One-to-one technology, sorry guys. Um to reduce one-to-one technology, consider that for whatever. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Yes. Okay, thank [laughter] you. Uh second. Was that a second? Okay. Uh motion for Miss Lopez to move forward to the full board for consideration

088reducing technology one-to-one savings. Second for Mr. Wells. Any further questions or comments? Discussion from the board? All you want, yep. Just one quick one. Um, as part of that information I'd be interested to see if we do decrease that, what's the increased car the offset cost for books? Yep. We'll have to look at that. Yep. Yep. We'll we'll do our best to get the information. Any further questions? All those in favor say I. I. All opposed say nay. Motion moves to the full board 6-0 one absent. Any further questions? Any further motions at this point? Uh I'll move to I would like to see us get some specific numbers on um what Maplewood would look like for consolidating that. I think that's needs to be talked through at this point. You're talking about staff consolidation?

089Building building and staff, yep. Good. Second. Second for Mr. Gonkey. Uh any further questions or comments on that motion? All those in So, that was I'm sorry. Mr. Kalnesburg-Gilbert was one. Got it. Good. Yeah, I just want to I'm taking notes just in case we need to mention [clears throat] because we're going pretty fast and I know Miss Markert's doing a great job. >> [laughter] >> Say slow down. All right. All those in favor say I. I. I. All opposed say nay. Motion moves to the full board for full Maplewood staffing and uh building exploration. Other questions, motions, comments from the board at this time? Yeah. This might come after we do the school perceptions one, but um if we were talking about the clubs paying more for fees and paying for um usage space,

090seeing how many of the clubs raise enough to be able to actually do that before we make a serious decision on that. Be curious how many of them would be able to do it. Well, that's just more in in in a broad sense. I know Miss Lopez you mentioned you you know, coach buses and in in everything like that. So, the board may have to make a decision, doesn't matter. Because if if if club X has a big booster club and they're allowed to do X, Y, and Z because they have the funds, is that the same as organization Y? Do we want to pit organizations against each other because they have a large booster club? I know. I was just I understand. Yeah, it's just that's part of the booster club when you start

091talking about the number of miles, um number of competitions, and that sort of thing. Yep. Yep. Um I'm not sure if this is the appropriate time to talk about it. So, tell me no if it isn't, but um what about developing a district-wide booster club like Tomah has? They have uh every one booster club for every sport and I think it includes activities as well. Um So, and since it's it's outside of this, we probably wouldn't be able to talk about that now because we don't have any control over the the booster clubs getting together or not. So, um I'm not [snorts] sure. It might be loosely connected, but I don't >> cost saving purpose. >> For for cost saving purposes, I don't I don't know. Okay. All right. I honestly think that's an individual

092choice of the booster clubs though. Yep. That's That's if if the booster clubs want to consolidate and be all in one, that's their that's their Yep. motive. Yep. Would that be something you could put on this um school perceptions survey? Yep. We can ask. Would be interested in that. We can ask. >> owners be interested in sponsoring? Yep. We can we we can do we can do a lot. So, they'll >> [laughter] >> We we can do a lot. It's just if they have any standard to to base it on. You know, school perceptions does very good to say, "Hey, as long as you get X amount of surveys, this is a good result." Even though it's hey, it's you know, 52% versus 38%. 38% might be pretty darn good. Compared to that. So, if

093you ask you start asking specific survey questions, it gets to just the interpretation of that one data point. Any other questions or comments? Otherwise, let's see. First off, thank you very much. This is helpful. Gives us direction. We're going to do our best to get some things rolling. Um A couple things, school perceptions, I'll call them tomorrow and try to set up a time. We'll work with Southwest to talk about transportation. We'll talk with Mr. Kaylis about our one-to-one technology. We do have leases there. Um and then the building and staff consolidation at Maplewood, we'll work on that as well. Thank you very much. That's that's that that's clear. Thank you. Looking forward to seeing more numbers. Um all right, how about a 5-minute break? Does that sound good? It's 7:21, so we'll reconvene at

0947:26. Thank you all for coming. We still have more to go if you want to stick around. >> [laughter] >> It is 7:26. Here's your intermission is ending notice. >> [snorts] [sighs] [snorts] [sighs] >> You ready, Leah? All right, we're going to get back started here. We're going to recall this meeting to order. We are moving on to 3B in business discussion and possible recommendation to add a substitute employee section to the employee handbook. Miss Hauser. Yes, thank you. I have no slides for this, but the section is attached in BoardDocs. And this fits in really well with the conversation that we just had regarding finding efficiencies through automating processes and things. So, in the business office, we did upgrade to a new version of Skyward that did find efficiencies in payroll. And so, we

095looked at what we were outsourcing to Kelly Education, as well as some of the downfalls. Kelly Education previously was Teachers On Call. Um and we pay a 30% upcharge to Kelly for every substitute that we have. And so, um in looking at the substitute experience, the district experience, and the availability of our payroll staff, we decided that we would like to recommend bringing substitutes in house. So, they would all go through our payroll department, be on the district payroll. And that would come with a savings of about $75,000 a year to do that. Um and so, we've previously talked with the board about it and are moving forward in that direction. It should be positive for the district users. It should be positive for the subs. And again, it keeps them as our employees. So,

096this is the language to make that happen officially in the employee handbook. This language was um provided through WASB, who guides our employee handbook. And we also compared it with our employee handbook from when we used to have teacher or substitutes on payroll. And then we also compared it with our other substitute positions. So, I would like to recommend approving this revision to the employee handbook. So, another thing as you look through that, then once again, it's raised from WASB. We used to have in-house substitutes for prior to going to Teachers On Call, Aesop, Frontline, and that sort of thing. So, it was all done in-house. That means our payroll, our onboarding, uh our professional development, everything was us. Now, fast forward, we've had we've had Teachers On Call 5 6 7 Probably closer to

09710. Closer to 10 years. The amount of requirements that we need to make sure that we have, so this is going to be more you know, once again, we found efficiencies. This is still going to be on human resources, it's still going to be on payroll, it's going to be on the superintendent, it's going to be on curriculum, it's going to be on special education, it's going to be on onboarding, because we have a lot of legal requirements before people even step into the our into the classroom that they have to do. That we're taking on, which is great cuz it's saving us about $75,000. And we've talked to a lot of subs that they may not want to go through Teachers On Call because of the virtual work and that sort of thing. We're

098still going to have virtual trainings. Because they have required but you know, required you know, title nine, uh in-service, blood-borne pathogens, everything like that. But we're going to be taking that on to find because we found efficiencies throughout. So, we're we're working through that process and uh but this is just an example about how we're looking to keep efficiencies but using our current staff that we have that there there there should be no change to the building level. This is all on the district's side of things. And uh we're excited to bring this forward because we think it's going to be a better service for our kids and our teachers as well. And in the next agenda item, we're looking to increase the sub rate to even be more attractive to hopefully get those filled.

099All right. Thank you, Bill. Uh questions or comments from the board? Yeah. Ms. Lopez. I do have a question. Um can you explain how this works? Like will we have more sub a larger substitute base than we need, hopefully? Um and then these people are paid if when they work with us? Okay. Yep. And We're hoping that this increases our because we've heard that you know, I don't want to go through Kelly. Sure. I don't want to do that. I'd rather just go to the school district, talk to somebody. So again, that not talk to an automated or go through AI or anything like that. That's what our people are wanting to do in that customer service goes a long way, especially for our substitute teachers. So, if they are employees, are they able to

100work elsewhere if we don't have work for them that day? Okay. >> Yep. Just like they would do now. The the the teacher experience one thing would be no different. I'm not feeling well today. I call a sub service. They take it from there. Mhm. So, the from the teacher perspective, that it doesn't change. From the administrative perspective, hey, we get a list of people that are coming in today. We have a list of people that are vacant. So, from the building level, it there's going to be not a lot of there's not going to be a change. We're hoping to even increase our number of subs through having good customer service and compensating $15 a day than we have in the past. So, maybe even though they'd be through payroll, they're still at will.

101So, some may work two days a year, some may try to get an assignment every day of the year. Um and then we'll just have a process internally that we clean up the sub list every year. So, if somebody hasn't taken an assignment in quite a long time, we'd reach out and say, "Did you still want to be, you know, through on our sub list basically or should we basically resign you from from subbing?" So, um it'll be totally up to the substitute and how many days they select to work. Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you very much. Cuz we're going to have to onboard them all cuz they're our employees now. Right. Other questions, comments? Ms. Kagie? We're still using the same uh was it the same software service or the same service that manages um

102putting in for a sub and then We're looking to actually we're we're looking into it. Systems. We're looking into systems. Okay, but along the same line of Yes. Yep. Yep. We're not looking It may be a different system, but once again, if we can find a system that does the same thing that may even improve the experience and save us some money, we're still going through that process. But yeah, we're not going to hire someone to you know, hey, call this number where we used to you know, really go back to before the automation. We're still using the looking to use that automation. Do you have a question? Okay. Um I had a couple questions. Um So, these would they would be our employees, right? That's what we heard a couple times. So, um what

103Two two related but different. One of them how often do our substitutes take on those long-term roles? What is what is that cuz I read it and on page whatever that was, too, they don't accrue leave. And if someone's a long-term sub and our employee for a 4 months, that is not okay in my opinion. So, that's where how does that play out? Is that an option to be flexible at this point and add some of those parameters or no? I would We currently have that. So, for a long-term sub, we always kept them in-house. Anything over, you know, if we have a planned leave or anything like that, we'll say for because we have a you know, over 12 days, I believe is the technical term, 12 consecutive days in the same assignment. So,

104if we're anticipating someone to be out 2 plus weeks, we typically we either post the position because we need to find someone that's certified. We always try to do that. But if we can't find anybody, we we've done this process before and we've never given them the we've never given them a personal day, paid leave, or anything like that because they're at will employees. Their essential job function for a sub like that is to come every day to fill in. Now, they get paid more after that 12th day, you know, they get prorated back to the base rate daily rate. So, they get paid more but they're not given any benefits or anything like that. And that's common. Sorry. Um I'll just add the substitute teacher section is the only section that's new. The other

105sections are only in there because they got renumbered when we added the teacher section. So, any of the wording you see for long-term substitute or classified support staff substitute, that's all the language that we already have in our employee handbook, just renumbered. Thank you. That's helpful. Uh the other question I had on the bottom of page four, I I I forget exactly how it was worded but something essentially there's no legal uh grievance process for those employees. So, my question is that legal, right? Are we making sure we're staying in good standing there? And should there be something even if it's legal, doesn't make it right sometimes. I would go to WASB's recommendation on that one since it is legal. Um So again, I'm I trust that even though they're at will employees, we're going

106to do the right thing. And if we do have a concern with an employee, we we need to address it with them and that concern may mean, you know what, we're going to not have you at this level or that level or the entire district. And we still have that process now. So, even with Kelly, we still have those conversations. It's not like we pick up a phone or type into a chat, "Please don't have this person come back anymore." We expect to have that conversation and say, "Hey, dude, your actions" cuz we want subs. We're hard [snorts] to have subs, [clears throat] so we want to work with our subs. We want to work with our team to make sure that they feel comfortable and supported but there's certain things that we can't not

107allow. And it's like, "Nope, okay, we're not going to have you here." And then we let Kelly know and say, "Hey, this just didn't work out for either this building or uh the entire district." And sometimes it's just building. Sometimes high school's not a good fit but they're having a great experience at the elementary level, for example. And we have that. All right. Thank you. [clears throat] That's helpful. Other questions or comments from board? Otherwise, I'd entertain a motion. I move to recommend to the full board to to add uh substitute employee section as presented to the employee handbook and to be placed under consent. Motion from Mr. Wells? I'll second. Second from Ms. Behrens. Any further [snorts] discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, say nay. Motion moves to full board

1086 0 1 absent. Thank you. And we'll go on to 3C, discussion possible recommendation to increase the daily sub rate from $140 per day to $155 per day. Ms. Hauser. Yes, thank you. Um so, I mentioned that we pay uh 30% upcharge to Kelly Education for basically having our substitutes on their payroll. Um in looking to bring this in-house, we also have an agreement with Kelly that substitutes, if they work um I believe it's more than 10 days in a month, they get a $100 bonus. And in comparing this with other districts, um Sorry. You can see in this chart um that we do pay the lowest per day and compared to our neighboring districts that we um look at. And so, our proposal is to discontinue the bonus and instead build it into the

109daily rate. So, um that that monthly requirement isn't required but rather um just paying a competitive rate wage for even the first day worked. Um, and where that would come from is we would reinvest part of that savings from bringing them into our payroll and reinvest that back into the substitutes, which, um, the hope is that that would keep subs subbing in Sparta versus taking other assignments, which in turn will help our student experience and our staff experience, um, with the intent of having better sub coverage and, um, again, reinvesting that money we're already spending back into our substitutes. Thank you. Uh, questions or comments from board on 3C. Jackson. Yeah, go for it. So Oh, you just turn off. >> Oh, thank you. Um, Mr. Russ, you had mentioned, you know, that you would

110post for a certified staff. Um, is this the sub is this the sub rate for all staff or like any position or certified only? This is daily for certified. Okay. So, this is for our traditional teachers, um, that work with our kids. So, this is just a traditional teacher. Um, I call in, I'm not feeling well in the morning, I call in, uh, Dr. Burnett picks it up, he comes in, he's on board and everything, he gets paid $155. And how does $155 compare to our base, um, certified cell over? I believe our base per diem is, uh, roughly, we'll say $250. Okay. Yeah, I agree with that. Um, and to comment on the classified or hourly staff, so like educational assistant, the they get an hourly rate, which in our district is $0.50 less

111per hour than what the, um, wages for that position, and we're already competitive there, so we have one of the higher EA sub rates, so that's why we're not recommending any change there because it's already competitive and it already adjusts each year as the wage for that position adjusts. Where a teacher, we don't have it tied to that, and so, um, it's been at 140 for a couple years now, at least. So. Thank you. Any other questions, comments from board? Yeah, go for it. Uh, I was just going to make a motion. >> [laughter] >> I, uh, move the recommend to the full board to increase the daily sub rate from $140 per day to $155 per day. On consent. Under consent. Motion from Mr. Burnett. Second. Second from Mr. Wells. Any further questions or

112discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed, say nay. Motion moves the full board is 6-0-1 absent. >> [snorts] >> 3D, discussion possible recommendation to approve revising a technology position into a team lead position. Mr. Cayless, Ms. Hauser? Yeah, I'll actually start this one and then I'll let Matt explain the actual position. Um, but kind of full circle on a couple topics here, so we talked about this earlier, too, about the staffing in the technology department. So, um, I'll say about a year ago, it was a five-person staff, two middle management positions, and three classified positions. Um, Matt was one of those middle management positions as the network manager, and when he moved into the director role, um, he asked for a time to kind of feel out the department and see where

113the needs were. If you recall at that time, he had recommended a cybersecurity specialist, and we brought that to the board for approval. That would have been a middle management position. Um, we took that position pretty seriously and we're looking to fill it, and then we kind of tapped the brakes and said, "Let's look at the department again." And, um, through that process, we decided, "Let's add back another computer tech or a classified position and not fill the middle management position." So, right now we have a department of three, which was a department of five about a year ago. We're looking, um, to bring that up to a department of four, so we would still be down one net FTE, and that one down is a middle management position. >> [clears throat] >> Um, that

114leaves just Matt, though, with kind of that manager kind of, um, decision-making level experience, and we really need two people like that in a department. So, if you think to buildings and grounds, we did something similar, um, about a year and a half ago, in that we created a team lead in buildings and grounds, um, posted it internally for our existing staff, and then it was a shift differential, so that if Ryan were out, we had somebody who had the knowledge and experience and basically could help me guide making decisions for that department in that absence. And so, that's what we're looking for in technology, so this is a shift differential for one person that would be an internal person, um, that they'd have to submit a letter of interest, and this would be in

115lieu of filling a middle management position. So, with that, I'll let Matt take away what the job duties would be. Oh, um, and the technology department is housed at the high school currently, and after their renovations, they will also still remain at the high school. Um, but they do serve district-wide. So, the, yeah, the position basically would serve as a backup to the director of technology. Um, they would also lead cybersecurity efforts, um, that being in lieu of hiring a cybersecurity support specialist. Um, they would take care of, uh, task coordination between the three technician positions, and mentorship and support for the other technicians. And as you can see there, if the the numbers are up there, it's a $2 an hour different in pay. Um, of course, no new added employee with that, and

116we get rid of the middle management position. Thank you. Questions [snorts] or comments from board? Yeah. I Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, I I'm just curious, do we have somebody with this, um, with these skills in our department? I mean, it wouldn't be it would be in addition, somebody adding somebody to the department, but you're saying someone in our in-house who >> Yeah, so our two existing computer techs both would be qualified, and if if this were to get approved, we would have that discussion with them to see the interest and the qualifications after, um, if it becomes a thing, then we'll go through that process to see which of our two is the selected. And then replace that person with somebody else because if it's moving from a a position of three or a department

117of three to go to a department of four. Yeah, so, um, currently we're down two positions, and we've basically used, I'm going to round up and say this past year to see what our needs are, and, um, through that process, we've still determined that cybersecurity is the area that we want to invest more manpower, um, and so, um, but Matt believes that with his supervision and kind of taking the ownership of the decisions of cybersecurity, that a lot of the tasks can be performed by a computer tech level position with Matt having the ultimate ultimate ownership of it. So, um, but three people for a technology infrastructure the size of our district is slim, and they've been doing a great job, but that fourth person really is needed. And then we're still down net one

118from with no intent to fill that, so we'd go to a four-person technology department. So, you would add on paying a fourth person. It's just because you'd be filling a position that was previously empty, not filled. Correct. We have two vacant positions right now, so filling that position is independent of this action. Okay. So, this action would be, I'm just going to use a generic number of if they both are making $20 an hour right now, one of them would begin making $22 an hour, but with these added duties. And then the district will hire somebody else at $20 an hour. >> You got it. You got it. That's the the way it's worded is confusing to me, but now I understand, so. Yeah, thanks for asking. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, this is dropping the

119requirements for one and then filling an empty slot right now, which I can only imagine how it is with three people. I can only imagine having to call the shots. I've been there once, and it, yeah. So, yeah, you're you're down to the bone already, so they need a person to do that and somebody to coordinate because otherwise you get too many tickets at one time and everybody tries to take the same ticket and it becomes crazy. And then everybody's asking you what the decision for Matt. So having a point person makes that whole thing easier. Remember we're not looking for easy, we're looking for the right way. You you you you you you know I know that you know I know what you meant but but it's really it's it's about efficiency. This is

120going to this is going to make us more efficient and we believe it's the right way to do it. And the right way to do it sometimes is the most difficult way. Yep, you're right. It creates a flow that makes it manageable. I understood. I just want to You know we start talking about words and want to make sure that it's not well it's easy. Well. I have a question. Speaking of words, um how much of this position would you guess would be dedicated towards cybersecurity? Like is that the primary 80% right? Like do you have a breakdown or idea of what that would look like? Um yeah, no not 80. I would say probably 40% would be cybersecurity. The rest is computer technician. Yeah. I just I this feels like an important position that

121didn't exist 20 years ago part of our operating right? And how much of our 45 million dollar budget is on cybersecurity? That that's that's here's another example of how a middle management position saves us from millions of dollars of breaches and lawsuits and nefarious people out in the community. So I just had to add that for obvious reasons. Anyone else? It's not just about the the lawsuits or anything. It's about the peace of mind of our staff. >> right. And our kids and our families. >> Safety, security. It's that cyber stuff that's that people are are most scared about and and this is a area that we tried to fill but we didn't get the right person so we pumped the brakes, reevaluated and we feel this is the right way to go. Any other

122questions or comments from board? Otherwise I'd entertain a motion. I don't think we have one out there yet. I move to recommend to the full board revising a technology position into a team lead position and to be placed under consent. I'll second that. Motion by Mr. Wells, second by Mr. Burnett. Any further questions? All those in favor say I. I. All opposed say nay. Motion moves to the full board 601 absent. Thank you very much. All right. Three, where we at? E. Discussion possible recommendation to move select 26-27 Board of Education meetings due to some possible conflicts. Mr. Russ. >> Yes, every April we look at our 26-27 calendar and as usual recommending changing the December 28th meeting to December 21st due to winter break and and leave. And then for Memorial Day not having

123our meeting on Memorial Day but the Tuesday after. So it's our recommendation to move those two as presented and can be placed under consent. Thank you. Any questions or comments from board? Otherwise I'd entertain a motion there. Move to approve of those dates as presented under consent. Second. Motion from Mr. Burnett, second from Mr. Gonsky to move to full board under consent. All those in favor say I. I. All opposed say nay. Motion moves to the full board 601 absent. Thank you. Where we at? Three F. Discussion possible recommendation to revise the 26-27 staff calendar to include the August 27th as a classified staff work day. Mr. Russ. Yes, looking at in the past several years ago we had our classified staff school year classified staff come in for two days of in-service when our

124traditional certified staff do four. We found that we needed them to come in and collaborate with the teachers and get ready and that sort of thing so we increased it to three days. Um and when we increased it to three the first emergency closure day was just they the the classified staff couldn't put in a personal day per our handbook. So what we're finding now is is that we still need more time to collaborate with our staff to get ready for the kiddos that they they talk to and the number of required in-service materials that our staff need to go through increases constantly. So we're asking to change the staff calendar only for school year classified staff to have four days of in-service which would mirror the certified staff. So they would come in and

125have the same amount of in-service time without increasing their overall work agreements. So this would mean our first two emergency closure days they we're basically front loading them. So they would be paid in August rather than for a emergency closure in January and then emergency closure in February. And then if we have the third closure then they can make it up at the end of the year or they can use a personal day or that. So it's our recommendation to add a fourth to the staff calendar for school year classified staff only to meet the professional development needs needed for the classified staff. All right. Thank you. Questions or comments from the board on this one? Good. Can you share what's being added on that extra day? Um part of the big thing is it's

126our increased need for safety. Our increased need we're going to go to the one of the agenda items is Act 50 not Act 57. I'm sorry. Do do do do. Is Act Act 57 summary so we have to go through that. Required service for Title Nine. Um blood borne pathogen. You just it just keeps getting larger and larger along with the demand for the classified staff to meet with the lead teacher to get a sense, go through case loads, go through what each student needs, transition and that sort of thing. So Um it just seems to be getting more and more and more. We have a district wide in-service one day and really to to to make them feel involved and part of the team. Too many times like well you're just an educational assistant.

127You just show up and then you're It's really to embrace them in the culture when they talk talk about PBIS at the building level. They're doing it along with the teachers and along with the administration and everything like that. So it's really to continue to gain that time with the lead teacher and opportunities for Skyward in-service to do that. And we could add this is how to de-escalate children. This is how to work with reading. This is how you work with math and everything like that. So we're just looking to add more time and but it's also more time with the lead teacher. Thank you. Questions or comments from board? Otherwise I'd entertain a motion there. I move to recommend to the full board to revise the 26-27 staff calendar to include August 27th as

128a classified staff work day and to be placed under consent. I'll second that. Motion from Mr. Wells, second from Mr. Burnett. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. All opposed say nay. Motion moves to the full board 601 absent. Three G. Discussion and possible recommendation to set Sparta High School's class of 27 graduation date. Mr. Ford. Good evening. It's that time of year to set our graduation date for the following year. So I'm excited to propose May 28th of 2027. So that's the Friday right before Memorial Day weekend which is part of our um part of our process and part of our plan every year. Thank you. >> [snorts] >> Questions or comments from board? Otherwise I'd entertain a motion. I I move to set SHS's graduation date for 2027 May 28th

129and to be placed under consent. I'll second. Motion from Mr. Wells, second from Ms. Barrons. All those in favor say I. I. All opposed say nay. Motion moves to the full board 601 absent. Thank you. All right. Three H. Discussion possible recommendation to approve revisions to policies 1213, 3213 and 8462. Mr. Russ. Yes, as part of Act 57 which is required notification if there's staff misconduct there is specific policy changes that we need to put in place that were directed at NEOLA. So policy number 1213, 3213 and 8462 mirror the state statute for Act 57 which makes it very clear when administration has to inform parents and what steps need to be taken and how do we educate our staff to make sure they understand these policies and notices to families and that sort of

130thing. So these are required policies that do require additional resources to our staff that we have to make sure that they get and and you'll notice this to our families but these are recommended from NEOLA and these are highly recommended because they align with state statute. Thank you. Uh questions or comments from board? Yeah, go for it. Um on policy 1213 um part C, I guess I'm Is that I I'm just confused. A registered sex offender has intentionally captured an image of a minor student without the parents or guardians written consent. We need to let them the parent know that. How do we know that though? Until they let us know. This is we're all this is a reactive. So for a for a registered sex offender in in every annually they have to contact

131me or the superintendent and the superintendent has to give explicit written authorization. Okay, we go through that process. So if they are on our property either hopefully legally, they know about it and they do make that capture without the consent. Is intentionally cap once again it's intentionally. So it's it's my you know, if I'm taking a picture of a group picture, you know, so it's really we just have to let the family know that this happened. So it really outlines specific times when administration and staff need to alert families. It's pretty prescriptive and it also pretty prescriptive for the staff as well. And it's all age appropriate. It's all age appropriate. Having [snorts] a a elementary console a um you're give a hug to an elementary is much different than a high school teacher giving

132a hug to a to to to a high school student. It's situational and it's age dependent. Other questions? Um [clears throat] Did you have one Miss Lopez or is that yours? No, I don't know. I All I was going to say is that some of these things seem I don't know. It it it seems um subjective a little bit rather than objective and I just I don't I clearly don't want our students to be um injured in any way. I also don't want to make it so reactive or whatever the word is that our staff is walking on eggshells. You know, that's I don't know. Can I even without even without this policy we have a due diligence to act and to intervene and everything like that. So what's really changed is the prescription of

133alerting families and being more clear about hey, these are the job expectations and that sort of thing to make people oh, you know, it being you know, the first one is hugging, you know, kissing and physical contact with students. Well, hopefully you know, again a first grader that's coming in to me and you know, and they say hey Mr. Russ and they come in and give me a hug. I'm going to give them a hug. If a high schooler comes and says hey, I'd like to give you a hug and I don't have a relationship with this student. Like whoa. High five. Fist bumps. Handshake. You know, but you see it at celebrations, you see it at ceremonies, you see it at graduation when kids come up and hug their favorite teacher. That is fine.

134That is fine. And they continue to do that. And now these are up you know, because NEOLA mentioned these are these are age and subjective. You know what? Let's give the totality. If a kid gives me a hug at graduation if that's the only time I ever have contact with them in a public space that's that's okay in my opinion. Um giving gifts of money without a clear educational purpose. I know teachers have sent you know, cards to kids when they graduate with $5 in it or something. That's not that's not a problem. Perfectly fine. Um um maybe not the coach, but an assistant coach giving a kid a ride from Memorial to the high school or back again. Is that considered inappropriate? >> say that's not best practice. So then we have students walking

135or Yep. riding with other students who may or may not be licensed, may or may not be breaking JDA. >> And that's the parent needs to come there and once again, but it is not best practice to ride any have any staff member travel with any kid in their personal vehicle especially without parent permission. Um we have forms and that sort of thing. So it's always being that proactive. You feel bad for the kid and say hey, you know, but you know, how can I call mom? I can you know, so it's really situational is it an entire emergency? Oh jeez, you know, but it's always best practice not to have a student in your vehicle for I don't want to say obvious reasons, but for obvious reasons. Yep. No, I I agree. I just

136I Yeah, I just um want the students to be safe clearly, but I also don't feel like staff need to be you know, walking around on eggshells like I said. It's >> Nope, and we I agree with the policy. Yep. And I understand it. Yeah, and you know what? If we we decide not to get I'm looking at you know, the list of 22. You know what? Now we take those out and now it's really subjective. You know, to get well, what is it? I didn't you know, it's it's a half dozen of one and what is it? Doesn't it divided by two of another? I don't know. How much of the Sorry, did you have any >> I'm done. I was going to ask how much of that green language is editable or how

137much of that is actually the act 57 NEOLA language that we can't Can't shouldn't touch. I would say examples are pretty open. The list on page five. >> on page you know, 122. I would just have to confirm just like anything else if we go against anything if we say no, I don't want to you know, I I don't like it all. And let's say okay, I'd go back to NEOLA and say okay, which ones are required or they may say this is a terrible idea that's all required, but it's not all required. I put it in there as to say hey, this is clear, but it's also age appropriate because you said you put it all in there. Your teachers are going to wonder what does that mean? It's age appropriate. Um but if

138we don't have it in there, they're not to have they're not you just go to the top. You know, any behavior that lacks clear educational or medical justification or serves as an emotional or physical needs of a student is strictly prohibited. Period. Without any more context than that cuz that's where I say we would stop. Cuz then it starts to list. Some of those are pretty straightforward. Others are hugging. I can't hug a kid. Saying you can't hug a kid. Right. Well, and that's that's I that's why I started with that first one cuz cuz connecting the dots of the page three required notifications. So if many of our students go home and don't get the support they need at home, the most support they get at the school day, right? You got to now

139who has to report a hug by 5:00 p.m. that like what happens if we don't report a hug by 5:00 p.m. that same day or noon the next calendar day. So that's including weekends is how that's written, right? Yep. And those are all notifications based off of that list including >> examples of Okay. >> It's not limited to, but examples once again the administrator is making a judgment. Yeah. But it's really it's the same thing. Hey, if a kid comes up to him and say it comes up to an administrator that's available and says hey, this teacher touched me inappropriately. Guess what? We're having a conversation. Right. We don't have the kids coming up to me and say yeah, I'm so happy that I gave Miss Bearns a hug. It makes me feel great. Great.

140Great. I'm going to Miss Bearns and say hey, just made that kid's day. So it's really about you know, being aware and if someone's being overly touching, overly doing this and that. I don't want people to walk on eggshells, but it's also hey, there's a time and place to give a kid a hug. At Walmart might not be the best time and place. It could [snorts] be. I'm not saying it's not. [clears throat] I just seem one of my comments here is that seem like incredibly oddly specific language for policies that a lot of times we try to keep it broad and vague for that interpretation to be out to the professional in the room at the time, right? Like that's that's some of that balance there, but but This gives a little bit more

141guidance to the professional in the room as well. With those specifics, yeah, right. Okay. But once again if the board is and I'm not disagreeing with you. If we say hey, let's take out such behaviors, you know, take out the list of 22 and you know, clean up that language there. We can do that and I'll confirm that with NEOLA. If that makes the board I mean, I'd rather have more information than not enough, right? Cuz that's where my I just wanted to clarify some of those things of how that would actually play out in real life versus written policies that aren't written by the people in the rooms, right? Yep. So, it really it goes back to what is the the intent. If I purposely do not report something, that's not okay. I purposely

142not say why I don't want to get that person in trouble. That's not okay. I take in the information, I make the professional judgment says, "Nope, this is not Act 57 liable. We're good to go. That's not mandatory reporting. Nope, we're good to go." But it really puts that other layer on if it is reportable, administration needs to act very quickly. And now if they don't report by noon on Saturday, the right way, it's not just leaving a voicemail, you know, sending an email, it's very prescriptive. Mhm. >> [clears throat] >> Okay. So, this has gotten a lot of attention in the news. >> [snorts] >> Say if it if it was a Was it a state of Wisconsin? Is that where it originated? Where did it come from, Act 57? >> I don't it's

143a state of Wisconsin one, but I'm not sure when we talk about grooming and inappropriate inappropriate um conduct of school staff. Remember, this is volunteer, uh coach, advisor, custodian, teacher, admin. This is everybody that's covered under us. Substitute teachers, same thing. If we decide to go that route, which I believe we will. Okay. Any other questions or comments from the board? Otherwise, I'd entertain a motion there. Um Mr. S, could I just ask about number 17 and number 20 number 19? You bet. Um favoring certain students by inviting them to come to the classroom at non-class times. That is not staying come and get extra help. No. [clears throat] Okay. And number 19, um providing advice or counseling to a student regarding a personal problem, unless properly licensed and authorized to do so. I um

144might not want other I mean, I want I would want my children to come to me about personal problems, but I imagine that that happens rather frequently. Yeah, certain levels. More often at the secondary level, we have more conversations is that the where do you point the essential job functions of you know, somebody comes to me and says, "Oh, I'm having a rough day today. I have X, Y, or Z." Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Thank you very much for coming to me. Let's get you to a school counselor who has trained to deal with to talk about that. That is the ideal answer. Oh, tell me a little bit more There's There's There's There's a line there because we want our teachers We I'm sorry, we want our kids to come to our

145teachers and our staff to say, "Hey, this is You came to me for help. I want to help you." But we have to be careful on that help because I'm not trained to give help in certain situations. And that's the difficult part and say, "Hey, that's why I don't want to talk to my school counselor." Well, who can we talk to? Here's 211. Here are some resources. Here is this. Here's that. So, it Once again, it's really fact-dependent. And you know what? Our our especially at the secondary level, they do, but when you start talking about sexual behavior, substance abuse, or physical, emotional health, or family relationships, that's pretty specific. But those are examples. Yes, and those I I think you see the trends of that mental health, that that may be being physically not

146well in certain times, being in endangerment, and that sort of thing. Cuz some of these things are mandatory reporting. Sure. Okay, thank you. Yes, Madam Chair. Any other questions? Otherwise, I'd entertain a motion. Move to approve to the full board recommendation to approve revisions to policies 1213, 3213, and 8462 under consent. Second. Motion Mr. Burnett, second from Mr. Wells. Any further questions? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say nay. Motion moves to the full board 6-0, one absent. All right. >> [clears throat] >> 3I. I'm out of water. Uh discussion, possible action for the Board of Education to move to closed session pursuant to Wisconsin Statutes 19.85, parent one, parent C, parent E, parent F for the purpose of one, considering employment compensation of administrators, classified and middle management staff,

147two, potential action to issue preliminary notice to consider non-renewal of teacher contracts pursuant to Wisconsin Statutes 118.22, and three, pursuant to Statutes 19.85, parent one, parent G, Wisconsin Statute, the board will adjourn to closed session to confer with legal counsel who is rendering oral or written advice concerning strategy to be adopted by the boards with respect to litigation in which it is or is likely to become involved. With that, I'd entertain a motion to move to closed session. So moved. Second. Motion from Mr. Wells, second from Mr. Gonkey. Uh do we got to do a roll call on that? Yes. Roll call, Ms. Macron. Mr. Gonkey. Yes. Ms. Behrens. Yes. Dr. Burnett. Yes. Ms. Lopez. Yes. Mr. Bruins-Gilbert. Yes. Mr. Wells. Yes. Motion moves, passes 6-0, one absent. We are in closed session. Thank you.

148Thank you very much, everybody. Uh the live stream will end, and if there's any announcement, we'll come back here at that time. And but not the video the live stream will end at this time. Thank you very much, and go Spartans.